


flowers in the concrete

by hamlindigoblue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, MJ feels things but you'll never know, Not Far From Home Mid-Credits Scene Compliant, Peter might though, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Sleepy Peter Parker, Spideychelle, Trope: MJ has a fire escape outside her window, illusions did a number on your boy, mostly fluff with some emotional h/c, of the mutual nature!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 03:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19862800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamlindigoblue/pseuds/hamlindigoblue
Summary: He scrubs a gloved hand over his face and lets out a shuddering sigh. Drops down onto her unmade bed with an air of defeat, then immediately jumps back up like he’s been scalded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—ugh, sorry, is it okay if I sit here?”On another night, MJ may have let herself laugh at that. As it is, she can’t help the way her heart balloons in her chest at how god damn, insufferably cute he is—but tonight, it’s just as quickly tamped down by the needling, sharp apprehension in her gut at what he’s probably here to do.[Or, Peter's got issues. MJ's got 'em too.]





	flowers in the concrete

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't done any creative writing in literal years! Do I know how to write anything that isn't a research paper, thesis, or lab report anymore? No! 
> 
> This fic is Far From Home compliant and contains some spoilers, with the caveat that the mid-credits scene never happened, because I have no idea what you're talking about.
> 
> PeterMJ rights! Goodbye!
> 
> (Title is from Kacey Musgraves' Love Is a Wild Thing.)

MJ has already heard his weight drop onto the fire escape outside her window when her phone dings, a text message peppered with question marks and sweaty smiley face emojis asking if it’s okay to come in. It’s one in the morning and she’s up, which she assumes he’s gathered by the lit lamp in her room, and she goes to gently slide open her shades, making sure to punctuate the movement with an eye-roll (never mind that her stomach does a little flip that, at this hour, he’s thinking of her—wants to be with her—).

She squashes down the thought with authority and uses her weight to heave open the window, pretending not to notice him help her ease it up from the outside. With a quick glance around, he pushes his mask up his face and offers her a sheepish smile, tight with nerves, and immediately starts the babbling brook routine: “Sorry—I was just, y’know, in the neighborhood… just, like, a little mugging nearby, nothing to worry about, just a run-of-the-mill—”

“Get in here, you dork, before someone sees you,” MJ snaps, trying to sound exasperated, but unable to keep the edge of laughter out of her voice. How can someone manage to make such pitiful social ineptitude so endearing? He huffs a laugh himself and obliges, letting her fist a hand into the neck of his suit and pull him through the window.

It’s been a few weeks now since Europe, enough time that some of the initial self-conscious awkwardness between them has given way to a gentle familiarity, but MJ has still been, for lack of a better word, guarded. Still surprised by the sometimes-imposing enormity of her feelings for him, still scared that at any moment he could realize he never actually liked her at all. It’s the anticipation of that moment—more than any future moment where Peter could be hurt or endangered by his double life in spandex—that seeps into her thoughts at night, closes up her throat when she’s with him and thinking about telling him how she feels. Not trivial stuff like hey, I like you, the thing that felt momentous to admit back on the bridge, the thing he already knows—but stuff she’s never told anyone about herself, her life, her secrets, and how deep the feelings behind that “hey, I like you,” really run. So she deflects, teases, wraps herself up in her protective air of calm, cool, and collected, does the things that make her feel safe and in control. The usual.

Peter’s got his mask off entirely now, clutched in one hand as his eyes rove over the posters on her wall, the clothes spilling haphazardly out of opened dresser drawers, an empty mug perched on a stack of books. He always does this—acts like he’s taking her room in for the first time, every time, like it’s a shrine he has to catalogue every detail of. She rolls her eyes and smirks at him, thinks fleetingly about grabbing his chin in her hand and redirecting his attention, but then thinks better of it and says, “I would have tidied up a little if, you know, I’d gotten a heads up.”

Peter starts as if MJ had really grabbed his chin after all, widening his eyes a little as he looks back to her. “Sorry—uh, no, it’s fine, it’s not—your room looks GREAT! You look gr—it’s fine, sorry, I should have—”

“Peter!” She looks at him with a little incredulity, stops to consider him for a moment. Peter’s awkwardness, of course, can’t be understated, but there’s an energy to him tonight that’s just a touch too manic. She takes him in, noticing the sweat beading on his forehead, his tapping heel sending jiggles up the length of his leg, the way he’s biting down on his lower lip and acting like he could vibrate out of his own skin at any second. She frowns, tentatively tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you okay?”

“Am I—yeah! Of course!” He laughs, but it sounds forced. “Of course, why—why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Dunno. Okay people usually act a little less… weird. A little less defensive about being okay,” MJ offers, smirking a little, but she crosses her arms over her chest and tries to project a collectedness of her own that’s beginning to crumble. Maybe this is it—the moment. Maybe he’s here to deliver the news she’s been waiting to drop since they got off that plane and parted ways in Newark. I made a mistake, MJ. I just want to be friends, MJ.

Of course he’s nervous. Of course he’s not okay. He made a mistake, but he’s a good person.

Peter looks torn, like he can’t decide whether to go on with the charade or rip the band-aid off. He scrubs a gloved hand over his face and lets out a shuddering sigh. Drops down onto her unmade bed with an air of defeat, then immediately jumps back up like he’s been scalded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—ugh, sorry, is it okay if I sit here?”

On another night, MJ may have let herself laugh at that. As it is, she can’t help the way her heart balloons in her chest at how god damn, insufferably cute he is—but tonight, it’s just as quickly tamped down by the needling, sharp apprehension in her gut at what he’s probably here to do. Her arms still crossed, she clenches her jaw and nods, bracing herself.

With a look of relief, he sits back down and sighs again, digging his elbows into his knees and burying his face into his hands. He steadies himself with a breath, and the next time he speaks, it sounds less like he’s a coiled spring and more like he’s immeasurably exhausted. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to just barge in like this. I kinda just… came here on autopilot, I guess. I know it’s late… and, like, I know you know what you signed up for, but it’s not fair for me to just expect you to take on this kind of stuff, like, whenever, you know?”

At this, she falters a little. “Take on… what kind of stuff?” she asks carefully. She thinks about approaching the bed but decides she’d better wait, keep the distance and hold herself together.

Peter lifts his head, and MJ notices a flush reddening his cheeks, creeping down to his neck. “This, uh… this boohoo, wah wah, dumb superhero stuff…” He laughs weakly, like he’s being flippant, mocking himself, but she can sense the fear, the embarrassment. Her own fear rushes out of her like a dam’s been broken, and her arms drop to her sides. Oh. _Oh_. God, she’s an idiot.

“What?” Peter asks. He’s looking up at her like a puppy about to be scolded, and her heart lurches.

“Nothing,” she laughs, and she’s both surprised and mortified to hear it sound a little wet. “Nothing,” she says again, quickly, “I just uh, thought…” She swallows thickly and finally makes the decision to clamber onto the bed next to him, folding her legs beneath her, fiddling with the stretched-out elastic on the hem of her old sock. When she looks up at him, the flush is gone from his face, his brows furrowed and his eyes cutting right through her. “Are _you_ okay?” he asks.

There it is—the wet laugh again, tumbling out of her before she can rein it in. She purses her lips and gives him a firm nod in spite of it. “Yes,” she answers with as much conviction as she can muster. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t care about the time. You can tell me anything.” She’s not surprised to know she means it—just surprised to know she’s actually said something she means.

Peter doesn’t look surprised, though. Peter looks relieved, like it was exactly what he was hoping to hear when he dropped down onto her fire escape. He hesitates for a moment, eyes flicking down to her lap, then reaches between them and clasps her hands, gingerly, like she might pull them away. She doesn’t, and he settles his grip, swipes a suited finger over her knuckles. She ignores, to the best of her ability, the little thrill she feels in her stomach.

“It’s, uh, stupid,” he chuckles sheepishly, “it’s just, um, I haven’t been sleeping so well, I guess, and I really didn’t want to go back to my room and just lie in my bed, so I thought I’d…. come here.” The flush is back, flooding his cheeks with heat, like he thinks he’s never said anything more stupid in his life. MJ can think of about a hundred much dumber things he’s said with not an ounce of shame, whether to her directly or something she’s overheard him say to Ned, but she resists the impulse to bring that up. Instead, she laces her fingers between his and scooches back towards her headboard, lies back against her pillows and pulls him along. Internally, she wonders what in the hell she thinks she’s doing, but his eyes are on hers like he’s in a trance and it stirs something in her. He’s lying next to her now, and even through the dumb suit, every place on her body touching his feels like it’s on fire. For a second, she almost lets herself panic, but his breath is hot against her mouth, and then he’s kissing her, and everything else goes away. Everything but Peter, his lips and his tongue, his hand trailing over her neck and through her hair, and the feeling in her stomach like she’s falling hundreds of feet with nothing to catch her.

When they finally break apart, it’s like breaking out of a spell, one that leaves her feeling a little shy, a little drowsy. He’s staring at her in wonder, smiling this dumb dorky smile, and then he laughs, “Yeah, this… this was a much better idea.”

MJ laughs too, then goes quiet, slips back into the hazy peace that’s settled over them. She’s watching herself trace the sunken crescent moon under his eye with her thumb like it’s an out of body experience, hears herself ask, “Why can’t you sleep?”

“Dunno,” he says, quietly, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch. “Just feel like… gotta make sure it’s all real.”

She frowns at this. “What do you mean?”

“This.” He gestures vaguely, his eyes still closed. “Reality. May, Ned, you all being, uh… here. _Me_ being here. You being… _here_.” His eyes flutter open and wander over her with longing, like she might disappear.

“I’m here,” she says, and threads her fingers through his curls. She waits for a beat, studying him. “Is this because of Mysterio?”

He stiffens a little, casts his eyes away like he’s ashamed. “Uh… yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

“You beat him, Peter. That’s all over. I know Europe was supposed to be a break, but now that Europe’s over, this is _actually_ your break.”

“I know, I know,” he sighs, waves his hand in the air, then brings it back down to coast a finger over her collarbone. “I know it is. It’s just like… I don’t _get_ breaks, MJ. And the last time I thought I was gonna get one, it turned out my own eyes were deceiving me. I’m just…” He stops, bites down on his lip like he’s considering how to proceed. “I guess it just feels like, things can’t be this good, so it _has_ to be an illusion. And it’s not like it can’t be, you know?”

“I know,” MJ says, even though it wounds her that an absence of chaos in his life can make him so wary. Even though, in some ways, Mysterio illusions aside, she understands perfectly.

“I just… I just feel like I have to stay vigilant, keep my senses dialed up, look for signs that things aren’t what they seem. I guess I keep thinking, what if I go to sleep, and I wake up, and it’s me and Beck again, and he’s tricked me? What if this is all just, like… some crazy, drawn out plan to, like, torture me? Oh god, I probably sound nuts, don’t I?”

MJ huffs a laugh. “I mean, maybe a little paranoid, but not exactly without reason, Peter.” Her smirk softens, though, and she’s brushing a finger over his lips like she can coax the tension out. Still feeling out of her own body. “Reality is this: you beat Beck. You’re home. We’re all safe, mostly thanks to you. And I totally just let you make out with me,” she adds, and hopes he doesn’t catch her own cheeks flushing. If he does, he doesn’t mention it—just laughs, and kisses her again.

When he pulls away, she nuzzles her face under his chin, breathes in the tang of his skin, the heady smell of his suit. “Don’t sell yourself short, dork. You deserve a break, for good stuff to happen to you. You deserve it, and you’re getting it. It’s not an illusion. The end.”

Peter sighs, but it feels different this time—peaceful, relieved. Affectionate. He tightens his arms around her like he can’t bear the thought of letting her go. She closes her eyes, cheek pressed up against him, lies there with him for a while. She’s almost dozing when she feels the vibration of his voice through his chest as he asks, “MJ?”

“Hmm?”

“When I first came in… when you asked me if I was okay… why weren’t you okay?”

She hopes he doesn’t feel her stiffen in his arms, snapped back into her body at last. She swallows, sniffs in a breath. Does her best to get her protective air back up around her before she answers. “What do you mean?”

“Something was bothering you,” he says, just like that, not even posing it like a question up for debate. He pulls away, tucks his chin down so he can watch her face. God damn it.

“Oh, god, nothing,” MJ laughs. Does it sound shrill? Jesus. “No, just, really stupid. Literally nothing.” She almost stops there, but under his gaze, the words just keep tumbling out, her defenses crumbling. “Just, uh… thought maybe you were dropping in to, I don’t know, break up with me.”

She smiles like it’s a great joke, pretends she doesn’t see the shock pass over his face, and feels strangely embarrassed. He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her seriously. She’s trying to laugh it off like it’s a silly misunderstanding, but her forced humor is wilting beneath his eyes.

“MJ.”

“What?” she says back, with maybe a little too much bite. But he’s unfazed.

“You know I really, really like you, right?”

Her stomach flips again, for the millionth time that night. Her cheeks are burning. She can’t bear to look at him.

Peter takes her chin in his hand, the way she thought about grabbing his own what feels like ages ago, but gentler, almost reverently. He waits until her eyes have wandered back to his, sheepish, uncertain.

“Like, really like you. Like, think about you constantly like you. Like, barge onto your fire escape unannounced at one in the morning to cry like a baby like you.”

“You didn’t cry,” she scoffs, but it’s got no heat.

“Doesn’t matter. I have. I would,” he says dismissively. “You told me I deserved for good stuff to happen to me. You’re, like, 99% of that good stuff. And don’t you think you deserve for good stuff to happen to you, too?”

She hasn’t got an answer for this, and she fears if she tries to come up with one, she’ll just cry, which is a huge no-no. So she just looks at him instead, takes in the sudden fierceness in his gaze, the way his jaw is set like he’s got some lecture to deliver. And this makes her laugh—the wet laugh again, god, but a laugh all the same. She’s really being hounded about her self-worth by Spider-Man, like a PSA from some other universe.

“I mean it,” he says, and she knows he does. She knows he means business, and the wave of affection she feels crash over her is unyielding. She swallows, steadies herself. “I know,” she replies, quietly. “I know you do. Thank you.”

After a moment spent studying her, he finally seems to relax, lets go of her chin, wraps his arms back around her and pulls her to him so they’re lying face to face. His eyes are tracking over her features, lingering over her lips, pensive. His thumb is kneading circles into her shoulder.

“I’m sorry I freaked you out,” he murmurs after a while, and she knows he means about the imagined break-up. “Just as long as you know how much I care about you.”

She nods and offers a tentative smile. Shushes the part of her that wars against the idea that he could. Because he does. “I care about you too,” she admits. “A lot.”

He smiles and closes his eyes, sighing like her timid declaration gives him more peace than the world can offer. MJ shuts her own eyes and they lie there in silence, close and warm. She counts his breaths. She focuses on him against her, his ankle slung casually over hers, one arm stretched under her neck and draped around the back of her head, his breath tickling her lips. She focuses on his thumb, still kneading circles, the quiet electric buzz of his touch, the way, after a few minutes, the movements become thick and slow. When she opens her eyes, his mouth has gone slack, his breaths long and even.

The affection crashes over her again, unrelenting, and she lets it. Takes in the softness of his features, no longer marred by tension. Relishes in the idea that it’s here, with her, that he feels safe enough to fall asleep. Thinks about the adamance with which he asserted how much he likes her, how much she deserves to be liked. 

She thinks about how she’d told him he could tell her anything and realizes, with a strange feeling of calmness, that she thinks she may be able to tell him anything, too. She wonders why the thought doesn’t make her insides coil, or her feet twitch like she’s got to run as fast and as far as possible. It settles over her like a weighted blanket, grounding, certain. She gently tucks a curl behind his ear, traces the edge of his earlobe with her finger, watching as he doesn’t stir.

When she finally lets her eyes close and begins to drift, she’s thinking about how she’s never felt less scared.


End file.
